Carbone is a former speechwriter for Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, and her articles have appeared in The Weekly Standard, American Enterprise, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. Apropos of the topic of her book, she served as director of Family Tax Policy at the Family Research Council.

I have not yet had an opportunity to read the book, which has an official publication date of August 31, but fellow Virginia blogger Doug Mataconis has written a positive review of it at Below the Beltway:

There have been plenty of books and policy papers written, plenty of speeches and television and radio interviews, about the economic reasons that high progressive taxation is a bad idea. We’ve heard many times about how it restricts innovation by discouraging investments, or how higher tax rates actually have the seemingly perverse impact of decreasing government revenue, while lower tax rates lead to more money in the Treasury. Those arguments have been made and re-made, stated and re-stated, so many times that most fiscal conservatives can restate them on their own.

What we haven’t seen very often, though, is an argument about tax policy from a moral perspective, an examination of the impact that tax policy has on society in the manner that it punishes good behavior and rewards bad behavior. That is exactly the argument that Leslie Carbone takes up in Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, and it’s a welcome addition to the debate.

Earlier today, Leslie spoke about her book and answered questions about taxation and morality at a monthly gathering of political activists in Richmond, known as the Tuesday Morning Group Coalition, which is sponsored by Tertium Quids.

Leslie gave me permission to videotape her presentation, which is in three parts. In the first part, she is introduced by John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. In parts two and three, she answers questions from the audience.